Russian Fisheries Agency to distribute pollock, herring fishing quotas in Dec - agency head

MOSCOW. Oct 30 (Interfax) - Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency plans to distribute investment fishing quotas for Alaska pollock and herring in December.

"We are accepting bids from companies until December 8, after which we will consider them. If there are a lot of bids, we will hold reverse auctions of quota shares, if not, contract signing," agency head Ilya Shestakov said in an interview with business daily Vedomosti published on Monday.

He said half the 20% of investment quotas will go toward construction of 20 vessels, including refrigerated transport ships, and the other half will go toward building processing plants.

"We expect that for construction of processing plants there will be more bids than offered quotas. For vessels, we don't foresee a particular rush given the current difficulties with their construction," Shestakov said.

Commenting on the phase-two crab fishing auctions held in mid-October, he said they went smoothly, "there is demand, interest was strong - more than 160 bids were submitted for 27 lots."

"At present, the result is decent. If all contracts are signed, more than 200 billion rubles will go into the budget. Among other things, these funds will go toward the needs of the sector's development - construction research and rescue vessels, support infrastructure and fish conservation," Shestakov said.

Russia caught 1.9 million tonnes of pollock, 584,000 tonnes of herring and 95.8 tonnes of crab in 2022.